In cases where shore docking did not occur, the evidence must show that the ship operated in Vietnam's close coastal waters for extended periods, that members of the crew went ashore, or that smaller vessels from the ship went . The US Navy's Military Sealift Command (named MSC in September 1970) and its predecessor, the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS), supported U.S forces throughout the conflict in Southeast Asia. The Saigon Port was a civilian port under the management control of the Republic of Vietnam's governmental port authority. Some hull damage. Most of the dead were children. ***Our website URL has changed. USS Haleakala (AE-25) was a Nitro-class ammunition ship of the United States Navy in service from 1959 to 1993. You may not use more than At busy ports with a shortage of available berths, the problem was compounded because not only the ship on berth was delayed by whatever time the terminal was closed but also any ships awaiting berths were delayed. Fire on the John Harvey caused a mustard-laden smoke that spread through the city, producing eye inflammation, choking, pulmonary signs and symptoms, and burns. She burned and exploded throughout the night 10-11 July 1943, revealing her cargo as an ammunition ship and furnishing a beacon for air attacks. The U.S. military sprayed about 19 million gallons of defoliants during the Vietnam War. In March 1965, prior to the start of the Vietnam buildup, the Command had five ships under time charter with a total per voyage cargo capacity of about 57,000 measurement tons. Naval Warfare. llOl), as amended, and related statutes to aid in the development, promotion, and operation of the American merchant marine, Maritime is responsible also for the maintenance and preservation of vessels in the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF). container.style.maxWidth = container.style.minWidth + 'px'; for Vietnam duty on the SS Pioneer Myth, SS Transcaribbean, SS Aloha Once more homeward bound, Mount Katmai was underway from Subic Bay on 12 January 1967, arriving San Francisco on 7 February. NDRF, established pursuant to the Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946 (50 U.S.C. They should be recognized as veterans. ins.className = 'adsbygoogle ezasloaded'; Maritime entered into GAAs with private shipping companies for operation of the activated vessels assigned to them. Breton. of SS Mayaguez by Khmer Rouge forces in May 1975. Only two men of the 198 Coast Guardsmen aboard survived. Mount Katmai received nine battle stars for Korean service and nine for Vietnam service. U.S.S. The munitions themselves would be redesigned for safety while loading.if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'globalsecurity_org-banner-1','ezslot_7',135,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-globalsecurity_org-banner-1-0'); The Coast Guard kept accidents in ammunition handling to a minimum during the war. and tankers supplying Vietnam, with an average of 75 ships and over 3,000 . Mount Hood AE 11 - class Suribachi AE 21 - class Kilauea T-AE 26 - class The only thing that prevented a larger loss of life was that the accident site was isolated from the large population centers of San Francisco and Oakland. var ffid = 1; At mile 29 while transiting SAigon River en route to SAigon vessel was attached from shore by rockets and small arms. During fiscal year 1965, the Command moved approximately 13.2 million measurement tons of cargo. In addition to providing aircraft ordnance for airstrikes against North Vietnam, the ship also provided ammunition for ships engaged in support and interdiction shore fire missions along the entire Vietnamese coast. Within a few days, she was underway for rearming operations in the South China Sea, servicing the carrier strike groups and combatant ships off Vietnam. This loss of U.S. flag ships was offset to an undetermined extent by the addition of modest numbers of larger, faster, and more modern ships and by the contemplated fiture construction of 300 new ships over a IO-year period as authorized by the Merchant Marine Act of 1970. Even in its previously more responsive disposition, the in-stream discharge process is time-consuming, laborious, cost-ineffective, and unreliable due principally to surface conditions above sea-state one. Personnel casualties on Mount Hood and on other vessels totalled 45 known dead, 327 missing and 371 injured. Between 1965 and 1969, MSTS carried 7.6 million tons of supplies for the USS BUTTE served her country for 27 years, 5 months and 20 days, until decommissioned on 3 JUN 1996. \A":,::LF A a Built by Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point Shipyard outside of Baltimore, USS SURIBACHI served with the Atlantic Fleet for nearly all of her entire service career. For example, one ship waited 10 days in Okinawa at an estimated cost of $70,000 to discharge 25 tons of cargo. The problems in Continental US ports encompassed an initial lack of adequate ship bottoms, the glutting of ports with ammunition cargo, and an inadequate number of berthing facilities. Cargo shipped directly to Vietnam, for the most part, was initially received at the Saigon water port or the Tan Son Nhut airport. In October 1966 the converted Liberty ship SS Benjamin Chew and On 21 May 1944 an ammunition ship exploded in West Loch in Pearl Harbor. USS Mindanao (ARG-3) was about 350 yards away. Just as in World War II and if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[580,400],'globalsecurity_org-medrectangle-4','ezslot_5',127,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-globalsecurity_org-medrectangle-4-0'); . more. Suribachi Class Ammunition Ship: Laid down, 6 May 1955, at Bethlehem Steel Shipyard, Inc, Sparrows Point, MD. A less expensive landing ship (tank) waited 9 days to discharge about 600 tons--less than a day's work. Entering Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard on 17 January 1966 for overhaul, the ship returned to an operational status with Service Force Pacific Fleet on 21 March. The following were among the 46 precautions Surface cargo, during this period, continued to flow to Okinawa, Vietnam and Thailand causing multiport discharging, although efforts were made to direct shipments to the final destination port. The best overall way to cross deck munitions is via the LCAC. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=USS_Mount_Katmai&oldid=1150353997, This page was last edited on 17 April 2023, at 17:48. Each of the services had an inventory control point which controls and distributes that service's ammunition. Cargo requirements continued to escalate until a peak of 30.6 million measurement tons was reached in fiscal year 1969. This list may not reflect recent changes . to Freedom" bringing 300,000 refugees and 200,000 tons of Cargo from May 12, 1975, the SS Mayaguez was seized by Kmer Rouge. A very interesting means of cross decking ammunition, the Con Replenishment also presented a couple noted challenges and observations as well. This decision improved the discharge rate of ammunition ships almost 100 percent, allowing discharge offloading time to be decreased from seven days to four days. The ship exploded, showering the city with blazing cotton, sinking or badly damaging 21 ships, and killing and wounding nearly 1,400 people. ins.id = slotId + '-asloaded'; their country. above and beyond the introduction of a third ship for cross-leveling. hY,uJ=J1G AMRB=kf6vDfV: 2ODfd{\r.Kvi]% R(K.]l%e2%\C]/s/77_~_}wz7}~;?'l[{_mXz?}{5{G/>.}?b]mSs7g_~7O__}g_}{69J~7IzAo;h3~We{o/^2o>_q5 ?Oy?Wk[?[eEx{'Z. Most of the buildings were virtually knocked to the ground. This means that the accessibility of in-stream discharge lighterage out of sector will be extremely limited. Coast Guard buoy tenders in the Pacific made periodic trips to Vietnam installing and maintaining buoys. 92Qi M The AE 11 Mount Hood was a merchant acquired by USN on 28 January 1944 and converted to ammunition ship. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 2 US Military Vietnam Era M1956 Canvas Ammo Magazine Pouch Set at the best online prices at eBay! Formalized training would be an important element, and certification would be required before a loader was allowed on the docks. That morning the French freighter Mont Blanc, carrying 5,000 tons of TNT steamed into Halifax's outer harbor and proceeded at half speed up the narrows, while the Norwegian steamship Imo crossed the Mont Blanc's bow two miles ahead. SIRIBACHI deployed numerous times to the "MED", "Carib" and "IO". Over the next thirty-eight days, half a million Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen grappled with their German and Italian counterparts for control of this rocky outwork of Hitler's "Fortress Europe." The ships were constructed 1968-1972 and were initially commissioned naval ships, carrying a crew of naval personnel. Crew members were given Navy grades and rank However, Korean troops were transported by MSTS throughout the At the end of the month, the South Vietnamese defenders before Saigon gave way in the face of a powerful North Vietnamese offensive. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press Korea, merchant mariners in Vietnam were subject to the Uniform Code of Naval warships were resupplied from ammunition ships which all hoped were more discreetly located. of SS Mayaguez by Khmer Rouge forces in May 1975, SS There were 12 men on the team only 3 (including Jim) survived. The Military Sea Transportation After World War II, ammunition ships continued to serve the Navy in both the Vietnam War and the Korean War. And in celebrating her 30 th anniversary, USS Pyro entered a new era with the addition of female crew members. refugees from Da Nang and later, Saigon. Of the 320 men killed in the explosion, 202 were the African-American enlisted men who were assigned the dangerous duty of loading the ships. The Command maintained that newer ships being added to the fleet are not designed, for the most part, to carry breakbulk type cargo. The realization came in 2011 almost 40 years after his one-year tour aboard the ammunition ship Butte when Smith was diagnosed with prostate cancer and started doing some research. The bomb casing and other non-explosive parts of the device, such as guidance components, etc, account for the remainder of the weight. USS Pyro (AE-24) set numerous performance records among ammunition ships. In 1994, the ship was decommissioned, and in 2012, she was taken for recycling. [SS Overseas Rose with Congress immediately passed the Espionage Act, which outlawed a variety of crimes associated with German agents. missing in action in Vietnam compiled by Professor Michael Gillen, Pace Bari, a city on the Achilles tendon of Italy, was a major supply port for the British Eighth Army fighting in Italy. United States Navy ammunition ships carried gunpowder and other munitions, such as shell and/or cannon ball, to ships in the field. The most notable assets to using the LCAC are easy loading and offloading capability and access to magazines. We carried a total of 1,200 rounds per gun team. endstream endobj 864 0 obj <>>>/Lang(en-US)/MarkInfo<>/Metadata 62 0 R/Pages 861 0 R/StructTreeRoot 73 0 R/Type/Catalog>> endobj 865 0 obj <>/MediaBox[0 0 612 792]/Parent 861 0 R/Resources<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text]>>/Rotate 0/StructParents 0/Tabs/S/Type/Page>> endobj 866 0 obj <>stream Cargo not consigned to US Forces remained on the piers for weeks and sometimes months, creating undesirable and crowded working conditions which adversely affected port operations. ins.dataset.adChannel = cid; window.ezoSTPixelAdd(slotId, 'stat_source_id', 44); A German air raid on Bari, Italy, in December 1944, also caused an ammunition ship to explode, sinking and damaging almost two dozen other vessels in the harbor. The overloaded port facilities and the operational necessity to selectively discharge cargo to get high priority cargo ashore before less urgently required items resulted in excessive ship turn-around time which increased the total number of ships required. In addition to avoiding civilian infrastructure within that arc, another major impact is proximity to commercial shipping lanes. The Navy also used helicopters for vertical replenishment. From the shore it was moved by truck. Depot issues for 1966-1968 approximated receipts each month, frustrating the attainment of the stockage objective to the extent that the stockage objective was only attained and maintained for two months in early 1968 when the stockage objective was decreased by 74,500 tons. 1744), comprises primarily surplus Government-owned vessels that are considered to have value for commercial and national defense purposes in the event of national emergency. Hit by enemy fire in Qui Nhon harbor while waiting to offload ammunition. Damage and casualties were also inflicted on ships anchored as far as 2000 yards away. Ammunition Ships - AE Ammunition Ships keep the fleet supplied with ammunition and ordnance, independently or with other combat logistic ships. It, therefore, evisioned a time when the merchant fleet will no longer have sufficient break-bulk capability to meet military contingency requirements, and it was concerned as to how this capability can be maintained. On the evening of 17 July 1944, the empty merchant ship SS Quinault Victory was prepared for loading on her maiden voyage. The explosives are primarily in divisions 1.1 and 1.5. Major global commercial seaports that can offload a deep draft ammo container ship are surrounded by ingress and egress shipping lanes which significantly reduces potential portside offloads. MSTS and the Merchant Mount Hood Class Ammunition Ship: Laid down, date unknown, as SS Winged Racer, a Maritime Commission type (C2-S-AJ1) hull, under Maritime Commission contract . After an overhaul at Mare Island between 19 October 1959 and 15 January 1960, Firedrake conducted three more tours (April - August 1960; November 1960 - April 1961; October 1961 - April 1962 . Repairs were completed on 10 May, and the ship began refresher training in June. In this regard, Maritime develops national programs, policies, procedures, regulations, and instructions to govern the preparation, outfitting, and operation of Government-owned vessels operating under these agreements. Within six seconds, a deeper explosion erupted as the contents of the E.A. tons (39 billion pounds) of cargo to Vietnam for the Army at a Philadelphia, and New York. The list contains five categories of ships that operated on the waters of Vietnam. MSTS had four separate MSTS took about 100 Victory The T-AKE will replace aging T-AE ammunition ships and T-AFS combat stores ships. University and by American Merchant Marine at War **personal correspondence. While this maximized the use of ship bottoms, it created difficulties in Vietnam, because offloading by cargo nets and hooks was required and ammunition lot integrity had to be re-established within the depots. This is the largest single loss of life in the history of the Coast Guard. window.ezoSTPixelAdd(slotId, 'adsensetype', 1); Between 1965 and 1969 MTMS in conjunction with the Military Sealift Command transported over 22 million short tons of dry cargo and over 14 million short tons of bulk petroleum to Vietnam. From 1965 to 1973, MSTS maintained the massive military build-up in Indochina, delivering over 40,000 U.S. and allied troops and 99 percent of the ammunition and fuel and 95 percent of the supplies, vehicles, and construction materials dispatched to the combat theater. According to Maritime, the underlying cause of the problem was the lack of a sufficient number of qualified seamen to meet the needs of this emergency operation. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 1:6 Scale US Vietnam Machine Gun Ammunition Belt at the best online prices at eBay! Also, some berth service operators were reluctant to carry military cargo to Vietnam because of the potential risks, the extreme delays in unloading cargo in that area, and the resultant disruption of their commercial berth service. This change in the makeup of the merchant fleet also gave the Command cause for concern. The most devastating explosion in the United States occurred at Port Chicago in Suisun Bay, about 25 miles from San Francisco. The lack of adequate ports and port facilities in Vietnam required initially that all ammunition had to be offloaded onto barges and lighters for transport to shore. A million people, maybe five millions, were awakened by the explosion that shook the houses along the marshy New Jersey shores, rattled the skyscrapers on the rock foundation of Manhattan, threw people from their beds miles away and sent terror broadcast. She reached Yorktown, Va., 13 June for supply duty along the east coast from Gravesend Bay to Norfolk into September 1957. Thus closed the last act in the long Vietnam drama. by cross-leveling amongst three vice two ammo container ships. When the buildup began, the port continued to operate in this fashion. 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